Research in regenerative medicine has established a substantial progress in recent years. The development of novel stem-cell-based therapies becomes an exciting and fast moving trend in the field. Many neurological diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and stroke, involved massive cell loss. Cell replacement could possibly be the only way to reverse this devastating condition. However, the sources of stem cell have given rise to much of the controversy. Embryonic stem cell (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSCs) have shown an outstanding potential in differentiation into specialized cells of all three germ layers, i.e. ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm. Given that their pluripotency provides a great interest in basic researches and clinical applications, they bring out heated arguments on the ethical concerns, immunogenicity and a high incidence of tetratoma formation. The safety of using these cells in regenerative medicine should be carefully evaluated. To develop an effective and safe stem cell-based therapy, adult neural stem cells (ANCSs) offer an alternative candidate. Nonetheless, there is no safe and easy way of real-time monitoring and harvesting the ANCS in a live animal or in human. It is one objective of the present invention to provide a real-time method to monitor and harvest neural stem cells in an integrated system.